by Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature-length film, “Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro” (hereafter, “Castle of Cali”), will be aired on NTV’s “Friday Road Show” on the 5th. It was released in theaters in 1979 and has been broadcast on television many times since the following year, but it is one of Miyazaki’s masterpieces, the “Lupin the Third” series, and one of the best Japanese movies. Its charm has been discussed in various ways, but I noticed its fun and awesomeness.
The first movie version, “Lupin the Third Lupine VS Duplicate Human,” was produced in response to the high audience rating of the second series of TV animation “Lupin the Third,” which started broadcasting in 1977 (Clone)” It was released on December 16, 1978, and was a big hit.
The next day, December 15, 1979, the second movie version, “Castle of Cali,” was released. Miyazaki is now a world-famous master, but at the time of the production of “Kari Castle,” he was known to those in the know and generally unknown.
At that time, the animation boom was ignited by the big hit of the movie version “Space Battleship Yamato,” released in 1977, a re-edited version of the 1974 broadcast of the TV animation. In 1978, it became a pioneering existence of the animation magazine “Animage” (Tokuma Shoten) launched.
Anime staff began to attract attention due to the magazine’s spotlight on creators, but even for anime fans, compared to Yoshiyuki Tomino (currently Yoshiyuki Tomino) and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko of “Mobile Suit Gundam” (1979-1980), Miyazaki. And Isao Takahata was still a connoisseur (Toshio Suzuki, the editor of “Animage,” paid particular attention to Miyazaki and Takahata at the time).
Miyazaki also directed each episode in the first series of the TV anime “Lupin the Third” broadcast from 1971 to 1972, which he participated in midway under a different name. Still, he directed all episodes of the TV anime series in 1978. “Future Boy Conan” in 2018 is the first time. After the same work, he participated in the TV animation “Anne of Green Gables” by Takahata in 1979 as a scene-setting and screen composition but dropped out after the 16th episode. It was to work on the “Castle of Cali.”
According to Yasuo Otsuka, who was the character designer and animation director for the first series of TV animation, “Sakuga Sweat Covered” (Tokuma Shoten), Otsuka, who was requested to direct the second movie version of “Lupin the Third,” initially prepared I didn’t like the script that was given to me. I was worried about rewriting and staffing. Can you think about it?” Miyazaki said, “I’ll do it.”. Miyazaki participated in the production about seven months before the release.
The production period was about four and a half months, which was surprisingly short. Otsuka writes in his book, “In terms of quality/production period, ‘The Castle of Cagliostro’ probably sets the record for the shortest production period in the history of Japanese feature animation.”
